Swimming with Diana in the Great Peconic Bay

Swimming with Diana in the Great Peconic Bay

During our ten years in Buffalo,
we rushed to eastern Long Island in the summers,
once renting a dumpy cottage in New Suffolk,
eyeing the crowds at Wickham’s Fruit Farm
while we played on the beaches of Cutchogue Harbor.

I placed Diana in a Styrofoam float,
her feet dangling into the salt water
as I swam, pushing her out into the Bay,
so shallow even at high tide,
brought her along on the waves, salt water stinging like spit
keeping her back to gusty south winds.

She floated along on the ruffled waves, flopping her skinny arms,
lifted up out of the salty water coming at us in sheets
as she bobbed, my holding tight to her and the float.

Her arms flailed away
in the push of spray
undulating up and down in the winds,
forced by rough afternoon southerly gusts
to ride atop the waves,
caught and seized by the Bay’s wind,
flopping her arms with delight.